Jell-O

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Green Jell-O.

Jell-O is a trademark of the company mondelēz international for certain desserts , with gelatin are produced, including Fruchtgels / jellies , puddings and back free cream cakes . The brand's popularity has led to its being used as a generic name for gelatinous desserts in the USA and Canada .

Product description

Jell-O is sold as a gelatinous dessert both as a finished product and in powder form.

The powder contains gelatin as well as flavorings such as sugar or artificial sweeteners . The product is dissolved in boiling water and hardens as it cools. Occasionally, fruits , vegetables , whipped cream, or other ingredients are added to create elaborate desserts that can be poured into a variety of shapes. Jell-O needs to be kept cool until served, and once properly set it is usually eaten with a spoon .

Jell-O-Shots of different flavors

Jell-O-Shots are very popular as a party gag - some of the water is replaced with vodka and the finished mixture is poured into shot glasses (mostly made of plastic). The challenge is to remove the Jell-O-Shot, which has hardened through cooling, from the cup with the mouth without a spoon or other aids. Allegedly, the American singer and satirist Tom Lehrer invented it during his military service, where alcoholic drinks were prohibited and he brought alcoholic Jell-O to a Christmas party.

The pudding product line is cooked on the stove in hot milk , chilled until it hardens, or in the case of instant pudding, simply dissolved in cold milk and chilled further.

The product line of non-baked cream cakes is commonly mixed with milk, then poured onto a finished crust base and placed in the refrigerator to harden.

history

Gelatine has been known for many years and is used in the preparation of dishes. In the Victorian era it became increasingly popular and used in spectacular and complex “jelly molds” (gelatine bombs). For a long time, gelatine was initially sold in the form of leaves that had to be dissolved and clarified in a very time-consuming process. In 1845, Peter Cooper , an American industrialist and builder of the country's first steam-powered locomotive ( Tom Thumb ), received US Patent 4084 for a gelatin powder made from goose bones .

Forty years later the patent was sold to Pearle B. Wait , a carpenter and cough syrup maker from Le Roy, New York . Wait and his wife , May, added strawberry , raspberry , orange and lemon flavors to the powder in 1897 , giving their product its current name. The name was derived from the Latin / Italian “gelare” = to solidify, freeze and it was fashionable back then to add an -O to it. But since they did not succeed in marketing their product, which Waits sold her business in 1899 to a neighbor, Orator Francis Woodward, for 450 US dollars .

4 year old Elizabeth King as the Jell-O girl

From 1902, the Woodward-run Genesee Pure Food Company advertised in the Ladies' Home Journal with the claim that Jell-O was "America's most famous dessert". 1904 one hired William E. Humelbaugh, who began with the product marketing, which was continued by Frank LaBounty. In the ad in the Ladies Home Journal , a smiling, fashionably coiffed woman in a white apron was shown, who called Jell-O gelatine “America's favorite dessert”. The ads were a great success. The hand-drawn advertising images with Jell-O soon showed larders crammed full and children begging for dessert. Well-known artists such as Rose O'Neill , Maxfield Parrish , Coles Phillips , Norman Rockwell , Linn Ball and Angus MacDonald were commissioned with colored advertising for Jell-O.

Woodward began printing recipe books describing how Jell-O was made. Jell-O molds were distributed to immigrants upon arrival at Ellis Island .

Within a decade, three new flavors were introduced ( chocolate , which was removed from the range in 1927, cherry and peach ). Distribution was also expanded to Canada . The company pursued a marketing strategy that was based on recipes on the one hand and celebrities as testimonials on the other. Among other things, the actress Ethel Barrymore and the opera singer Ernestine Schumann-Heink were used.

With the spread of radio in the early 1930s, they also sponsored Jack Benny's broadcasts .

In 1923 the company changed its name to Jell-O Company and launched the D-Zerta product line , a sugar-free version of Jell-O made with artificial sweeteners . Two years later the company merged with Postum . In 1927, Postum acquired Clarence Birdseye's frozen food business and renamed the General Foods Corporation .

From 1930 spread throughout the US kitchen the fashion of congealed salads ( jellied salads ). In response, the company introduced Lime Flavored Jell-O to provide chefs with additional ingredients to use in their aspics and salads . By the 1950s, these salads became so popular that Jell-O introduced heartier vegetable flavors such as: B. Celery , Italian , Mixed Vegetables, and Spiced Tomato . These hearty flavors have now been withdrawn from the market.

In 1936, the chocolate flavor returned to the Jell-O product range, but this time as a pudding powder that had to be mixed with milk. The product proved immensely popular, and Jell-O sponsored comedian Jack Benny , who became an advocate for the dessert. Over time, other pudding flavors were added, such as B. Vanilla , tapioca , coconut , pistachio , butterscotch , egg custard , flan and rice pudding .

As a result, other new flavors were added and unsuccessful ones removed from the product range: in the 1950s and 1960s, for example, B. Apple , Late Bird Cherry , Blackberry , Grape , Lemon-Lime , Mixed Fruits , Orange- Banana , Pineapple - Grapefruit , Blackberry , Strawberry-Banana , Tropical Fruits , and more intense "wilder" versions of the time-honored flavors of strawberry , raspberry and cherry .

In 1966, the line of Jell-O “No-Bake” desserts was introduced, which could be prepared without the need to use an oven. This line of products made it possible to make a cheesecake in fifteen minutes. In 1971, packaged, prepared pudding products were introduced under the name Jell-O Pudding Treats . At the same time, Jell-O 1-2-3 , a gelatinous dessert that deposits in three layers as it cools, and Jell-O Whip 'n' Chill , a mousse- like dessert, were launched and heavily promoted. The corresponding products are only sold in a few regions today.

In 1974, comedian Bill Cosby became a spokesperson for the company's pudding products. As a result, the actor embodied the face of the company in public for almost 30 years. As part of his advertising activities, Cosby accompanied the market launch of countless products from the manufacturer. These included, for example, the frozen Jell-O Pops (both in gelatine and pudding variants), sugar-free Jell-O ' sweetened with aspartame , Jell-O Jigglers fruit gums and Sparkling Jell-O , a carbonated product variant that when the "Jell-O- Champagne " was touted.

In 1989, General Foods merged with the parent company Phillip Morris (now Altria Group ) in Kraft Foods (now Mondelēz International ). As a result, new flavors have been introduced regularly, including watermelon , blueberry , cranberry , margarita and piña colada .

In 2001 Jell-O was declared the "Official State Snack" of the state of Utah (see the poster, shown in the English language Wikipedia). The Governor Michael Leavitt proclaimed an annual "Jell-O-Week." This stems from a cliché that has been around for decades , according to which Mormons are said to be particularly fond of jelly.

Today, more than 158 products are sold under the Jell-O brand. In the United States alone, around 300 million packs of Jell-O jelly are sold each year.

Jell-O is an essential part of a dessert that is very well-known in the USA, in which finely chopped fruits are placed in a special mold in a Jell-O mass before it hardens in its well-known form.

Trivia

Stage and screen

Possibly the earliest reference to Jell-O in a cultural work was its mention in the lyrics to "Cockeyed Optimist" in the musical South Pacific by Rodgers and Hammerstein (1949). In it Nellie sings: "I could say life is just a bowl of Jell-O".

In 1959, Josephine ( Tony Curtis ) and Daphne ( Jack Lemmon ) comment in the film " Some Like It Hot " the movements of Sugar ( Marilyn Monroe ) walking in front of them on the platform to the train with "Look at that. Look how she moves" and " That's just like Jell-O on springs. "

25 years later, the brand was mentioned in the original version of the movie Ghostbusters 2 . In the course of the film's plot, Winston is reminded that a supernatural 'goo slime' resembles Jell-O, to which Winston replies that he hates Jell-O. Peter Venkman replies, “There is always some space for Jell-O”. The German dubbed version changes the dialogue according to the cultural significance into: "I hate jelly." - "Oh come on, it makes you big and strong."

Jim Halpert poured office supplies belonging to Dwight Schrute and Andy Bernard into Jell-O in the popular US television series The Office in 2005 . Tim Canterbury did the same to Gareth Keenan in 2001 in the original British version of the series , using the UK term "Jelly" for the product.

In the film The Naked Truth (2009) , lead actor Gerard Butler wrestles with two women in bikinis in an inflatable children's pool filled with Jell-O.

marketing

  • The comedian Bill Cosby is often associated with the company's products and in particular with its puddings in the USA, as he appeared in numerous commercials promoting them. Programs like MAD TV and Saturday Night Live have repeatedly parodied Cosby in the past with allusions like "pudding pop".

Other television appearances

  • The character Samantha Carter from Stargate SG-1 consumed blue Jell-O on numerous occasions in the television series.
  • In the 1980s, Jell-O powder was one of the main ingredients for the green slime in the hit series You Can't Do That on Television .
  • There is an episode on the sitcom A Terribly Kind Family in which Kelly has to prepare Jell-O for Bundy to pass a housekeeping exam.

Jello Biafra

Jello Biafra is the former lead singer of the US punk band Dead Kennedys , an American hardcore and punk rock musician and political activist. Jello Biafra stage name is an ironic combination of the brand name Jell-O and the Nigerian province of Biafra , the 1966 is tried by Nigeria secede. After 4 years of fighting and appalling famine , Nigeria finally regained control of the nascent state. Jello Biafra created the stage name as a targeted conceptual combination of a mass product poor in nutritional values ​​and that of the famine in the African region. He has repeatedly stated in the past that he considers the clash of two so contradicting ideas created in this way in the public imagination to be sensible.

literature

  • Carolyn Wyman: Jell-O: A Biography . Mariner Books, 2001, ISBN 978-0-1560-1123-5
  • Mary Cross: A Century of American Icons: 100 Products and Slogans from the 20th-Century Consumer Culture . Greenwood, 2002, ISBN 978-0-3133-6124-1

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. patent Peter Coopen
  2. The Jiggly History of Jell-O by Matt Blitz
  3. 1922 Jell-o Ad w / Art by Angus MacDonald
  4. The Jiggly History of Jell-O by Matt Blitz
  5. Some Like It Hot Script - transcript from the screenplay and / or Billy Wilder movie with Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis and Marilyn Monroe. Retrieved August 13, 2018 .